Out
by Nausicaa Smith
Summary: Trunks comes out. Vegeta eats doughnuts.


A/N: This is kind of a sequel to both "Love" and "Barely Breathing". This story is quite a lot more developed than either of those, owing to the fact that I have more time on my hands now and that I wrote both of those when I was 15, which was over 15 years ago. I may revise or expand on them later. "Love" was written before same sex marriage was legal, so it definitely could use an update. Happy reading, peeps!

* * *

"What did you break, boy?"

That's of course the first thing most parents think when their seventeen year old half-Saiyan son tells them they have a confession to make and "you're going to be mad, Pops." It wouldn't be the first time the purple-haired menace had destroyed half the house, half his mother's lab, or part of the gravity room. Not that Vegeta cared about the house or the lab, but the gravity room was serious business.

"What? Nothing, nothing's broken!" Trunks raise his hands in an innocent gesture, blue eyes widening. "Why would you automatically assume I've torn something up? I'm not Bra, you know."

That was true enough. Bra had a bad habit of swiping a credit card here or there to go out and replace something she'd broken, which was halfway responsible of her. Except that it wasn't her money and it always showed up on the credit card statement. Vegeta gave her props for trying, but at some point she'd have to learn her own strength. No, she was no warrior, but she had a lot more upper body strength than your average human and when she got angry with the microwave everyone suffered.

Trunks, on the other hand, had learned his own strength at a young age through training and generally only broke things by taking them apart. He'd gotten every bit of his mother's scientific curiosity that had been lost on Bra, and his various chemical and mechanical misadventures had a tendency to blow up in his face. Vegeta had caught the kid drawing his eyebrows back on with magic markers more than once. Bulma and her father both claimed he had good ideas, just poor execution. Vegeta thought perhaps the boy might ought to spend more time focusing on martial arts, given his penchant for small explosions and acid fires.

Vegeta stuffed the last half of his doughnut into his mouth and scowled, analyzing the kid's demeanor. He did look antsy, was breathing fast, and kept tugging at the sleeve of the green t-shirt he was wearing. What could possibly have someone as self-confident as Trunks Briefs this agitated? Vegeta mentally prepared himself to tread lightly here, knowing fully well from having dealt with the kid's future counterpart that his own approval mattered a lot more than he'd ever let on. Whatever this was, the brat obviously thought it was a Big Deal so maybe Vegeta should think before blowing up about it. But how to tread lightly while also not arousing suspicion?

"Well then spit it out boy, what did you do?"

 _Very subtle, Prince of Saiyans._

"Um." Trunks rubbed the back of his neck nervously, a sadly familiar gesture. Suddenly it was Future Kid standing in front of him, shyly trying to think of something to say that wouldn't be met with scorn.

"Yeeess?"

"I'm kind of, um, gay."

Vegeta stared at the boy, annoyance growing.

"And?" he demanded, grabbing another doughnut. Strawberry.

Trunks was staring at the ground. "And what?"

"And, that's it?" Vegeta scowled. "Here I was, all prepared to lecture you, or ground you or something, and that's it?"

Trunks finally looked up and met his eyes, surprised. "You're not mad?"

"Mad? You think I give a damn if you like it up the ass? All this means is that Baldy owes me two hundred zeni."

Trunks stared at him, mouth hanging open, eyebrows creeping up under his bangs.

"Why are you still standing there, brat? Was there something else?"

"You... you've been making bets on my sexuality?"

"Not just me. He's going to owe Yamcha, too."

"Oh, balls." Trunks buried his face in his hands. "So, should I assume you won't be mad that I'm kind of dating Goten?"

Vegeta choked on his next doughnut and suddenly had a nose full of chocolate frosting. Trunks stood by watching him cough and sputter for a moment, totally unsympathetic. Vegeta couldn't tell if he was glad that his confession hadn't ended in drama or disappointed that they weren't arguing about it. (Or pissed that he'd missed out on the betting pool.)

"Dammit, boy!" Vegeta finally gasped. "Now I owe Gohan five thousand zeni!"

"WHAT?" Trunks grabbed the doughnut box and slung it at Vegeta, throwing frosting and strawberry jelly everywhere. "I can't even deal with you—"

"Hey!" came Bulma's voice from the stairwell. Her blue head popped out from around the landing. "What are you two fighting about?"

Vegeta froze with a handful of smashed dough, which had been destined to be ground into the boy's face, and took stock of the situation. He'd never told the woman because it had never seemed relevant and also because he didn't want her trying to fit the brat into some kind of human stereotype. Probably he should have, but hey, he thought he had plenty of time. Turns out, seventeen years can go by pretty fast. He needed time to think, damn it.

Trunks opened his mouth to respond to her, but Vegeta smashed his fistful of sweet pastry into it.

"Nothing, woman, mind your own business!" He shouted, grabbing Trunks by the hair and dragging him out back toward the gravity room. It was a sunny summer day outside, and though the warmth seeped into his skin it was never hot enough anywhere on Earth to make Vegeta sweat without a good workout. The brat, on the other hand, was immediately covered in a light sheen and if he stayed out here long enough his hair would become damp too. It was lucky that he'd inherited Vegeta's skin tone at least, so that he didn't burn in the sun like the woman did.

He let go of the brat's stupid shiny (and now chocolatey) hair and slammed the gravity room's door shut behind them. Trunks was still gagging on shredded doughnut.

"Look," he said, turning on the boy, "I don't think she knows, and I don't know how she's going to act, so just pipe down until I scope out the situation."

Trunks raised his eyebrows. "Wait a minute, how do _you_ even know?" He gestured back toward the kitchen while wiping crumbs off his face. "I mean, yeah, she has no gaydar but it's not like I've been anything but discreet."

"Kid, I've known you were queer since before you were born so don't even try. And, in case you didn't get this earlier, I don't give a fuck except for the fact that you've lost me a lot of allowance money!"

Again with the eyebrow. "Before I was born? Oh, you're a psychic now?"

Vegeta sighed. He was getting a headache.

"Future Trunks came here two years before you were born, remember?"

"Oh, yeah, I remember when he visited after Buu."

"Right, so the first time we met him he kept staring at me. I'm sure it was because he'd never seen his father before and was curious, but I didn't know who he was, so I yelled at him." Vegeta locked the door and turned the gravity up a bit to deter the woman in case she decided to investigate. She'd probably be pissed about the doughnuts all over her carpet. "Actually I kept yelling at him after I knew who he was, too. He said he was just staring because he liked my shirt, which was pink."

Trunks snickered. "Why?"

"Why did he like my shirt? Because he was gay, obviously."

"No, I mean why were you wearing a pink shirt?"

"I'd spent my whole life up to that point wearing uniforms and battle armor for Frieza's army. It took me a while to develop a fashion sense, ok?"

Trunks kept giggling, which was not becoming of a Saiyan at all.

"Anyway, I knew right away that he wasn't into women. And besides that, I could smell it on him."

Trunks frowned a little bit and sniffed his own arm. Vegeta rolled his eyes.

" _And_ I spent a year with him in the hyperbolic time chamber. You don't spend that much one on one time with someone and not figure out that they're not attracted to females."

"...so, you've known for longer than my entire life that you were probably never going to have grandchildren?"

Vegeta rolled his eyes again. "Do I look like someone who gives a fuck about grandchildren?" He gestured back toward the house, where the woman was probably stewing over her ruined carpet. "That being said, the woman undoubtedly has a way of creating biological children for you if you want them."

"...ew. But ok, you've known this whole time and never told her?"

"'Hello dear, lovely pot roast tonight. Oh by the way, your son is homosexual and I've known since before he existed. Pass the rolls?'"

"Yeah, ok. That's awkward."

"It will be fine. What's more concerning is Kakarott's wife."

Trunks flushed a little red, looking out the window in the direction of Son's homestead.

"Yeah, Goten's got kind of a lot of internalized homophobia from his mom's side of the family. I don't think Goku will care, and Gohan..."

"Gohan was on my side in the betting pool for whether you were gay, and he bet that you'd get together with Goten which I bet against. You don't have anything to worry about there. Kakarott didn't participate, but it's likely he won't care. Chichi, however..."

"Does she know you guys were betting?"

"No, no one told her that I know of. You guys didn't make some kind of stupid pact to both tell your families today, did you? Because that's a bad plan."

"No, Goten was going to kind of test the waters with Gohan this morning and then see how things went."

"Fine. Call Goten and tell them both to keep their mouths shut to Kakarott for the time being, you know that fool can't keep a secret. I will deal with your mother. We will talk to Gohan this afternoon about how to deal with _his_ mother."

Vegeta turned back to the door, but was stopped by a pair of arms strangling him. He struggled for a moment before he realized that he wasn't being attacked.

"Thanks, Dad," said the brat, and hugged him tighter.

"Shut up." said Vegeta, and shoved him off.

He left the nutcase giggling in the gravity room, and went to buy more doughnuts.


End file.
